Bishop Mario Toso pointed to severe restrictions on Christian speech and conscience that can become the grounds of a criminal complaint in many European countries.

WASHINGTON — A statement from the Holy See warned that prejudice against Christianity is growing in Europe, often under the guise of “tolerance.”

“Intolerance in the name of ‘tolerance’ must be named for what it is and publicly condemned,” said Bishop Mario Toso. “To deny religiously informed moral argument a place in the public square is intolerant and anti-democratic.”

“Or, to put it another way, where there might be a clash of rights, religious freedom must never be regarded as inferior,” he explained.

Bishop Toso delivered a statement of the Holy See at the high-level Conference on Tolerance and Non-discrimination held in Albania May 21-22. The gathering was convened under the...READ MORE

Bishop Camillo Ballin, apostolic vicar of Kuwait, said a major concern for his vicariate is promoting religious freedom for Christians in the area.

WASHINGTON — As he oversees the missionary territory of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain, apostolic vicar Camillo Ballin outlined Catholics’ need for religious toleration as well as a physical home for ministry.

A native of Italy, Bishop Ballin set out to study Arabic and Islam in order “to discover another world” after his ordination as a priest of the Comboni Missionaries.

In a May 29 interview with Catholic News Agency, he noted that his travels have taken him to Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Sudan and eventually to his 2005 appointment as apostolic vicar of Kuwait.

His vicariate — otherwise known as an ecclesiastical jurisdiction within the Church, where a hierarchy is not yet...READ MORE

The Pope preached that Christianity without the cross is a religion that is more concerned with apparent victory than with the Father’s plan.

VATICAN CITY — At his daily Mass in St. Martha’s residence May 29, Pope Francis warned about the dangers of a Church that is too concerned with “organization and success” by recalling a “dark moment” of his spiritual life.

“A Church that only thinks about triumphs (and) successes, does not know that rule of Jesus: the rule of triumph through failure, human failure, the failure of the cross."

“And this is a temptation that we all have,” the Pope told employees of the Vatican city state governorate.

For Pope Francis, the Gospel reading from St. Mark reminded him of when “I was in a dark moment in my spiritual life, and I asked a favor from the Lord.”

Los Angeles County Superior Court set a September deadline for the public release of the documents.

LOS ANGELES — Catholic religious orders will soon release confidential files about priests accused of sex abuse who were assigned to work in Los Angeles, fulfilling part of a settlement agreement with victims.

The files involve orders including the Salesians, Vincentians and Marianists and will begin to be released as early as June. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Emilie Elias set a September deadline for the public release of the documents.

Victims’ attorney Raymond Boucher told the judge that most orders came forward “with a positive attitude,” the Los Angeles Times reports. “We want to get this behind us,” Boucher said, adding that the first records' release could happen in...READ MORE

Church leaders are concerned about efforts to allow new civil claims in cases involving decades-old allegations.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Sexual-abuse “window” legislation, similar to the law that led to diocesan payouts of over $1 billion in California in 2003, is snaking its way through state legislatures across the nation.

Senate Bill 131, which may go to the floor of the California Senate as early as today, could put the Catholic Church again in financial jeopardy by opening up yet another year in which civil cases alleging sexual abuse that happened decades ago could be filed in court.

“Our chief concern with this bill is that it goes backwards, that it opens up the statute of limitations all over again for one year in 2014,” said Kevin Eckery, spokesman for the California Catholic Conference.